Compartments for refrigerators



1959 i H. D. WHITE ETAL 2 COMPARTMENTS FOR REFRIGERATORS Filed May 20, 1957 5 Sheets-Sheet 1 VEGETABLES 27 INVENTOR. HOWARD D. WHITE HOWARD J. TENNISWOOD ATTORNEYS Oct. 13, 1959 Y H, D, w |T r 2,908,539

COMPARTMENTS FOR REFRIGERATORS Filed May 20, 1957 a Sheets-Shet 2 l2 I 1 W/w A l/ 1/ 2 I a 1 xx '5 z. I; U I

INVENTOR. HOWARD D. WHITE vowARo J. TENNISWOOD ATTORNEYS H. D. WHITE EI'AL 2,908,539 COMPARTMENTS FOR REFRIGERATORS Oct. 13, 1959 Filed Kay 20, 1957 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 INVENTOR. HOWARD D. WHITE HOWAR D J. TEN N ISWOO D ATTORNEYS United States Patent COMPARTMENTS- F OR REFRIGERATQRS Howard D. White, Deerfield, and Howard J. T'enniswood, Adrian, Mich, assignors to Revco, Inc., Deerfield, Mich, a corporation of Michigan Application May 20, 1957 Serial; No; 660,301

3 Claims. (Cl. 312-295) Household refrigerators often have fresh fruit and vegetable compartments which are separated by partitions from the other parts of the refrigerator interiors. Such fresh fruit and vegetable compartments usually have doors which when closed prevent free ingress of cold air into the compartments.

A compartment may extend entirely or almost entirely across the interior of the refrigerator and may be equipped with two sliding doors which overlap whenone of the doors is opened. Hence either of the doors can be opened, but they both cannot be fully opened at the same time.

In constructions designed prior to the instant invention, the upper edges of the doors slide alongtracksand the lower edges of the doors slide in grooves which constitute guides so that the doors cannot become displaced and cannot be removed without disassembling either the upper track structures or the lower guide struc-- tures.

With the doors in place, even though one of them be fully open, the arrangement isawkwardly contrived for cleaning. the deep compartment. Moreover, the guiding grooves are dirt catchers which are insanitary and difficult to keep clean;

It is an object of this invention to provide a compartment door construction devised to facilitate removal and replacement of the doors.

It is' a further object of this inventionto provide a compartment door construction having overlapping slidable doors which can both be removed at the same time to make the interior of the compartment more freely accessible.

Another object is the elimination of dirt catching grooves from guides at the lower edges of compartment sliding doors.

Another object is to provide compartmentsliding doors which are attractive in appearance and easy to manipulate.

And still another object is to provide sliding door mechanism having the advantages mentioned above. which is of sturdy, economical construction.

Other objects and further advantages of. the invention will appear upon perusal of thefollowing specification as illustrated by the accompanying drawings in whichz Fig. I is a front elevational view of theinner shell of a refrigerator box having a compartment, equipped with sliding doors, the construction" and mounting of which are in accordance with this invention;

Fig. II is an enlarged fragmentary elevational view taken as indicated by the line lI-II of Fig. I the doors being shown as closed;

Fig. III is a view of the parts shown in Fig. II the doors being shown as swung outwardly and upwardly;

and a Figs. IV and V are further enlarged fragmentary sec tional views showing the manner in which the foremost door can be removed from one location but is prevented from falling out of another location.

2,998,539 Patented Oct. 13, 1959 These specific drawings and the specific description that follows illustrate and describe a preferred form of structure incorporating the instant invention but they are not intended to impose limitations upon its scope.

The inner shell 10 of the refrigerator box to which this invention is applied has a door jam 11 (sometimes called a throat liner) into and against which a door, not shown, may be closed, a compressible gasket (not shown) being interposed between the door jam and the door to provide an air tight seal.

The inner shell 10 of the refrigerator box may contain shelves and other equipment in any desired arrangement only the lowermost shelf 12 being shown. The lowermost shelf 12 is preferably removably supported on rails 13 secured by means of fasteners 14 to the sides of the inner shell 10 and further supported along its forward edge by a cross bar 15 of inverted channel-shape. Lugs 16 projecting downwardly from the shelf 12 and are engageable with the rear side of the cross bar 15 to prevent the shelf from sliding forwardly unless the front edge of the shell is lifted.

Fitted within the cross bar 15 is a rail 18 shaped as indicated in Figs. If, Ill-I- and IV. The rail 18 preferably is made of extruded aluminumand preferably is inserted within the cross bar 15 before the cross bar 15 is fitted into the shell 10. It will be noted that the rail 18 is of inverted double channel form with a lip 19 extending rearwardly from the lower edge of the foremost channel wall and a ledge 20 extending rearwardly from the lower edge of the intermediate channel wall, the construction being such that a foremost narrow slot 21 and a parallel rearmost narrow slot 22 extend along the foremost andrearmost edges respectively of a wide opening 23 in the inverted channel-shaped cross bar 15.

The lower side of the door jam 11 constitutes a sill 24 having an upstanding. head 25 along its rearward edge, the bead 25 lying in advance of and parallel to the rail 18.

The rearmost door 26 and the foremostdoor 27 are generally similar in size and shape both preferably being made of transparent synthetic resin such as crystal clear polystyrene resin. The doors may have ornamental strengthening ribs, such as are indicated by the numerals 23, or other ornamentation molded thereupon. The rearmost door 26 is provided at its right side with an integral handle 29 and the foremost door is provided with an integral handle 30 at its left side. The rearmost door 26 may exhibit the molded word Fruits and the foremost door 27 may exhibit the molded word Vegetables or vice versa.

Extending into the rearmost narrow slot 22 and hooked over the ledge 20 is a flange 31 which is formed along the upper edge of the rearmost door 26. The lower margin 32 of the rearmost door 26 is offset forwardly as indicated in' Fig. II and engagesthe bead 25a Extending into the foremost narrow slot 21 in the rail 18 andhooked over the lip 19' is a flange 35 that is formed along the upper edge of the foremost door 27. The lower' margin 34 of the foremost door 27 is offset forwardly andis provided with a rib 33 which, instead' of engagingi the bead 25 directly, lies against the lower margin 32'of the rearmost door 26, the size of the rib 33' and the shape of the flange 35 being such that the major door panels lie in parallel planes. Because the major door panels are parallel and becausethey slope forwardly and downwardly, the fruits and/orvegetables behind the. doors are quite clearly visible even through portions of the doors that, may. be overlapped.

By so designing; the door hangingand; guiding structure that the bead 25 lies in advance of a vertical plane passing through the narrow slots 21 and 22 in the rail 18 and/or by so shaping the doors that their centers of 3 mass are ahead of their upper edges, the lower margin of the rearmost door 26 is held against the bead by gravity and the rib 33 along the lower margin of the foremost door 27 is held against the lower margin of the rearmost door by gravity, thus the need for a guiding slot is eliminated.

When it is desired to wipe the sill 24 and the head 25 the lower margins of the doors can be lifted somewhat so that a wiping cloth can be passed from side to side of the entire sill and head.

When it is desired to remove the doors to facilitate cleaning them and also to make the hydrator compartment easily accessible for cleaning, the lower margin of the foremost door 27 can be lifted outwardly and upwardly and the flange along the upper edge of the foremost door thus unhooked from the lip 19 (see Figs. III and IV). Likewise the rearmost door 26 then can be removed by lifting its lower margin and thus unhooking its flange 31 from the ledge 20. After cleaning, the doors can be readily replaced by the reverse procedure.

In order to avoid any liability that the foremost door, when it has been partly opened by sliding it sidewise, might accidently fall out if it is swung upwardly by pulling something, such as a pan, against it, short sections of the lip 19 are punched up sufficiently to prevent the flange 35 from slipping out of the foremost narrow slot in the rail 18. These punched up sections (which are shown at 36 in Fig. V) are located only along the portion of the lip 19 that the flange 35 hooks over when the foremost door 27 is partially or fully open. They do not interfere with purposeful removal of the door by swinging it forwardly and upwardly from its closed position. The probability that the rearmost door ever might accidently fall out is so slight that a similar precautionary treatment of the ledge 20 is not believed to be justified.

It is to be understood that the device hereinabove described and illustrated in the accompanying drawings is exemplary and that it is subject to modification without departing from the spirit and scope of the subjoined claims.

We claim:

1. A compartment for refrigerators, said compartment having a front opening, an inverted channel extending transversely over said front opening, a pair of walls of said channel extending downward, a ledge on said front wall extending rearwardly of said compartment, a door for said opening, a flange on said door extending forwardly of said compartment, the flange being of such dimensions with respect to said channel and ledge that it can be hooked on said ledge to support said door for transverse sliding movement and released from said ledge by raising said door, the separation of said ledge and said rear channel wall and the dimensions of said door and said flange being related in a manner to retain said flange on said ledge by engagement of said rear channel wall with said door while said door is inclined substantially to the horizontal, and a stop engag'ng said door along its path of travel on said ledge and arranged to maintain said door inclined forwardly below said ledge whereby the center of mass is forward of a vertical plane from the rearmost limit of said ledge and gravity maintains said door in a stable position suificiently inclined to the horizontal to enable said rear channel wall to maintain said flange hooked on said ledge throughout the range of sliding movement of the door.

2. A compartment for refrigerators, said compartment having a front opening, an inverted channel extending transversely over said front opening, a pair of walls of said channel extending downwardly, a substantially horizontal ledge on said front wall extending rearwardly of said compartment, a generally planar door for said opening, a planar flange on said door extending'for wardly of said compartment and turned from the general plane of said door through an angle of about the length of said flange being less than the length of said ledge and the depth of said flange being less than the height of said walls from the top of said ledge to the bottom of the channel, whereby said flange can be hooked over said ledge to support said door for transverse sliding movement and can be unhooked from said ledge by raising the door to a generally horizontal position, the horizontal separation of the rearmost limit of said ledge from the rear channel wall being greater than the thickness of said door adjacent said flange and less than the sum of that thickness and the flange depth whereby said rear channel wall maintains said flange on said ledge while said door is inclined to the horizontal, a sill extending transversely below said front opening, and a bead lying along said sill forward of a vertical plane from the rearmost limit of said ledge, said door having a height exceeding the separation of said ledge and said bead whereby said door when hung from said ledge has its lower margin in engagement with said bead and is held with its center of mass forward of the vertical plane from the rearmost limit of said ledge so that gravity maintains said door in a stable range of positions along said ledge and bead while inclined to the horizontal.

3. A compartment for refrigerators, said compartment having a front opening, an inverted double channel extending transversely over said front opening, three spaced walls of said channel extending downward, a substantially horizontal ledge on each of said front and intermediate walls at their lower ends extending rearwardly of said compartment, a pair of overlapping doors for said opening, a planar flange on each of said doors extending forwardly of said compartment and turned from the plane of said doors through an angle of about 90, the length of said flanges being less than the length of said ledges and the depth of said flanges being less than the height of said walls from the top of said ledges to the bottom of said channel, whereby said flanges can be hooked over said ledges to support said doors for overlapping transverse sliding movement and can be unhooked from said ledges by raising the doors to a generally horizontal position, the horizontal separation on the rearmost limit of each ledge from a cooperating channel wall immediately behind that ledge being greater than the thickness of the door engaging that ledge in the region adjacent said flange and less than the sum of that thickness and the flange depth, whereby said cooperating channel wall maintains said flange on said ledge while said door is appreciably inclined to the horizontal, a sill extending transversely below said front opening, a bead lying along said sill forward of a vertical plane from the rearmost limit of the innermost ledge, said inner door having a height exceeding the separation of said innermost ledge and said head, whereby said door when hung from said innermost ledge has its lower margin in engagement with said head and is held with its center of mass forward of the vertical plane from the rearmost limit of said ledge so that gravity maintains said door in a stable range of positions along said ledge and bead and inclined appreciably to the horizontal, and a rib on one of the doors near its lower margin and bearing against the adjacent face of the other of said doors, whereby said outer door is maintained essentially parallel with said inner door and is transversely slidable with respect thereto.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,475,284 Houpt July 5, 1949 2,602,501 Roos July 8, 1952 2,797,778 Wagner July 2, 1957 

